For Saturday 2nd July the friendly Japan Society North West (JSNW) asked the BGA team if we'd like to return, to run stalls at their Japanese festival.

We signed up for 3 stalls, unsurprisingly - we've featured at many JSNW Japan Days or Doki Doki festivals over the years, as Calendar and News-followers will know.

Some events have also been held in Manchester (see below).

The Welsh Open returned for its 28th edition on the 25th and 26th June. The venue was once more the Min Y Mor Hotel in Barmouth, which gives the chance to stay on site, to socialise over the Saturday evening dinner or to quickly pop to the beach and enjoy the weather. A total of 22 players came to play including a number from South Wales, North West and South West England and further away.

We held the first physical tournament in Durham since 2019 on 11-12th June. Nearly 30 people came with a whole range of ranks from some strong dan players to DDKs. While several players were from the North East, the majority had travelled from all corners of England and Scotland to attend. It was good to see so many familiar faces after an interval of two years for Covid.

The minutes of the 2022 AGM have now been published at https://www.britgo.org/history/accounts.

Congratulations to Gaoge Wang, from London , who got an unbeaten 6/6 to win the 2022 Candidates'. Also congratulations go to Bruno Poltronieri from Cambridge who was runner up with 5/6. The tournament was played over three days of the Jubilee holiday at the Letchworth Settlement in Letchworth Garden City. 16 players took part, notably including four juniors. One of these, Scott Cobbold, won four games, as did Tim Hunt. Gaoge and Bruno will now play a best-of-three match for the British Championship. Results

The Sheffield University Go Tournament was held on Saturday 14th May. This was the very first Go tournament held in Sheffield since the University Go Society was revived earlier this academic year. It was a great start for the society, with 22 attendees. It was held in a room rented out from the University, and the many windows allowed for some lovely sunshine for the players to compete in.

The UK team beat Croatia 4-0 in the Pandanet Go European Team Championship on 24th May to give the team its first and only win of the season. Congratulations to Daniel Hu, Bruno Poltronieri, Alex Kent and Des Cann for this convincing win in the last round. To avoid relegation they needed South Africa to lose their last round match, but South Africa defeated a weakened Italian team 3-1. This meant that the UK team ended bottom of League B and have therefore been relegated to League C for the 2022-2023 season. Germany and Austria both won to take first and second places respectively.

A reminder to everyone that the 2022 AGM is taking place on Thursday 26th May at 19:30, as an online meeting using ZOOM.

The link to use to access the meeting has been added to the agenda and other papers on Accounts and AGM Page

The Spring 2022 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read in the Members' Area, with printed copies being sent out around the middle of May.